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BushWatch—The Complete File
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Since January 2001 the AFL-CIO has tracked President Bush's record on working family issues. Compiled here is his complete record on the issues America's workers and families care about.
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Nomi nates pro-privatization and party fund-raiser candidates to Amtrak board
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Among the three members the Bush administration is nominating to serve on the Amtrak board of directors are an advocate of railroad privatization and a longtime fund-raiser for the Republican party, The Washington Post reported Sept. 12.
Current Bush-backed efforts to privatize the nation’s railway system threaten the jobs of some 20,000 Amtrak workers. Louis S. Thompson, who retired this year from the World Bank, led the World Bank’s effort to privatize railroads in several countries.
Floyd Hall is a longtime Republican party fund-raiser and former chairman of Kmart. The other nominee is former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall.
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Pressures EPA to omit mention of toxic substances in reports to public about safety of air quality at World Trade Center disaster site
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In the days immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center, the Bush White House pressured the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to tone down reports about potential health hazards resulting from the buildings’ collapse, according to a report by the EPA’s inspector general. Thousands of emergency workers and construction workers toiled months at the site and residents and workers returned to their homes and jobs believing it was safe to do so. The report, issued Aug. 18, notes all EPA statements about the disaster and clean-up were required to be approved by the National Security Council via the White Houser Council on Environmental Quality. The report says EPA was pressured by the White House to omit cautions about hazards from air pollutants such as lead, cadmium, asbestos and smoke from fires, some of which burned for four months. A Sept. 18, 2001, EPA announcement reported the air around the World Trade Center was safe to breath, but the inspector general’s report says EPA “did not have sufficient data and analysis to make such a blanket statement.”
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Slashes congressionally approved pay raise for federal workers
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President George W. Bush on Aug. 27 announced his intention to limit next year's pay raises for federal workers to 2 percent, citing executive authority that allows the president to limit increases in times of “national emergency or serious economic conditions.” Since Bush took office, 3.2 million private-sector jobs have disappeared, unemployment hit its highest level in 10 years in June and the Bush administration has run up the highest federal deficit in history. Bush cut an automatic 2.7 percent raise for federal workers to a maximum of 2 percent—or as little as 1.5 percent—depending on locality. Two years ago, Bush restored cash bonus payments for 2,100 political appointees, eight years after the bonuses were eliminated because of abuse.
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Charged Department of Health and Human Services for event expenses coinciding with campaign and fund-raising stops
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The Bush administration has charged the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) more than $252,000 for HHS events attended by President George W. Bush that coincided with Bush’s attendance at same-day rallies and campaign fund-raisers and for Republican candidates across the country, according to a report from the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO). Some $235,000 was charged to the Office of Administration for Children and Families, which runs the federal welfare program, Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF). The other HHS offices charged were the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Office of Public Health and Science. The GAO report shows Bush attended 15 HHS events, with each covered by a memorandum of agreement (MOA) between the White House and HHS regarding the amount Bush could charge to the department. As of May 2003, the Bush administration had collected $252,372 from HHS for eight of the events. According to the report, there is often a lag time between an event and the White House billing and the remaining seven events could cost HHS another $217,000. The events occurred between February 2002 and January 2003. In comparison, the GAO report found that former President Bill Clinton attended 37 HHS events between April 21, 1997, and Sept. 29, 2000, and HHS was charged just $101,000.
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Backs cutting $270 million and 84,000 students from college grant program
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The Bush administration’s Department of Education approved changes in the formula families use to determine if their college-bound students are eligible for financial assistance under the Federal Pell Grant Program. The changes, announced May 30, will rob 84,000 of aid and reduce financial help to hundreds of thousands of other students beginning in the 2004–2005 academic year, according to a memo from the Congressional Research Service. Education experts predict the impact of the changes will ripple into many state and university administered aid programs that base their eligibility formulas on the federal model, denying educational opportunity to even more students.
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Doles out big bonuses to political appointees
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Administrati on political appointees received $1.44 million in bonuses last year—even as the Bush administration sought to limit pay raises for federal workers, pushed for privatization of federal jobs and took away the bargaining rights of tens of thousands of federal employees. An Office of Personnel Management report lists 470 political appointees who got the bonuses—reviving a practice the Clinton administration halted eight years ago. At the same time, Bush originally proposed a 2.6 percent raise for federal employees for 2003—which Congress rejected and increased to 4.1 percent.
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Threatens to veto labor appropriations bill if it includes ban on eliminating overtime
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President George W. Bush on July 9 threatened to veto the fiscal year 2004 Labor and Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill (H.R. 2660) if it includes an amendment that would halt Bush’s plan to change federal overtime rules. The Bush administration is pushing for changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act that could eliminate overtime pay for as many as 8 million workers, according to an Economic Policy Institute study. The proposed House amendment would prohibit the U.S. Department of Labor from using funds to implement regulations cutting overtime pay. It also would enable the Labor Department to implement a regulation allowing additional workers to qualify for overtime. The amendment to the appropriations bill, offered by Reps. George Miller (D-Calif.) and David Obey (D-Wis.), is similar to a stand-alone bill introduced July 9 by Miller and Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.).
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No longer requires employers to keep track of such injuries as carpal tunnel syndrome
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The Bush administration’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) June 30 revoked a 2001 requirement that employers track workplace ergonomic injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome. The record-keeping rule, issued in 2001, required employers to check a box on standard workplace injury and illness logs if an injury was a musculoskeletal injury. The rule was designed to help employers, workers and OSHA identify and keep track of ergonomic injuries. Studies show nearly 2 million workers a year suffer from crippling musculoskeletal injuries. In 2001, Bush signed the repeal of the first nationwide ergonomics standard that would have required employers to control ergonomic hazards and given OSHA the power to enforce the standard. Bush claimed voluntary guidelines would better reduce ergonomic injuries.
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Backs employer efforts to use taxpayer money for anti-union campaigns
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The Bush administration’s National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is helping Big Business fight a California law that mandates accountability for the way state dollars are spent and requires state neutrality in worker organizing campaigns by banning the expenditure of state monies—pro-union or anti-union—in such campaigns. In 2000, the California legislature passed and Gov. Gray Davis (D) signed AB 1889, which prohibits employers from using taxpayer dollars to pay for employer-run campaigns to influence workers in their efforts to form or join a union. The law ensures the billions of dollars that flow to private employers each year through California grants and subsidies are used only for the purposes intended: public services and programs. In a 3-2 vote, the five-member NLRB voted May 29 to intervene in a federal court case brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, taking a position that protects employers who want to use taxpayer money to subsidize their anti-union campaigns and which denies states the right to control their own spending authority. The NLRB’s purported justification for its action is that federal labor law pre-empts the California statute. This position by the NLRB is directly contrary to that taken by the U.S. Department of Justice in two recent cases, which argued that federal labor law does not pre-empt Bush administration restrictions on the use of federal funds. The AFL-CIO and the California Labor Federation filed briefs in support of the California statute last April.
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Buried Treasury report that predicts huge deficits and need for tax hike
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The Bush administration, when it sent its proposed budget to Congress in February, omitted a U.S. Treasury Department report that predicted huge deficits far beyond the administration’s projections. The study also said tax increases were needed to close the astonishing $44 trillion deficit the study predicted. Yet, Bush’s budget instead called for a $726 billion tax cut and projected a deficit of just above $200 billion. A May 29 report in the Financial Times revealed the study was commissioned by former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, who resigned under pressure in December.
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Establishes system to privatize 850,000 federal jobs
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The Bush administration on May 29 unveiled the details of its plan to ultimately eliminate federal jobs and contract out the work to private companies. The changes are in the rules that govern contracting out—OMB Circular A-76—and give private companies the advantage over federal workers in the private-public competition process, federal workers’ unions say. In November, the Bush administration announced its goal of putting 850,000 federal jobs up for bid, including at least 15 percent, or 127,500 jobs, by October 2003. Administration officials reaffirmed that goal in their latest announcement. Last year, Bush demanded and won legislation allowing it eventually to unilaterally cancel the collective bargaining rights of 170,000 workers as part of the bill creating the Homeland Security Department. In January, the Bush administration took away the right of 60,000 airport screeners in the Transportation Security Administration to join a union.
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Stops action on rule to prevent worker TB exposure
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The Bush administration halted efforts to establish workplace health rules protecting workers and patients from exposure to tuberculosis. On May 27, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) withdrew a proposed TB rule from its regulatory agenda. In 1997, OSHA published a proposed tuberculosis rule and in 1998 and 1999, held hearings and took comments. After the Bush administration came into office, OSHA reopened the comment period on the rule in 2002, but its newest move halts further action on the rule. The proposed rule would have established procedures to prevent and limit the spread of the infectious airborne disease. Health experts say the TB rule also would help guard against airborne diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). In 1997, OSHA estimated the new rule would help protect an estimated 5.3 million workers in more than 100,000 hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, correctional facilities, homeless shelters and other work settings with a significant risk of TB infections. It did not offer an estimate of how many millions of patients, residents, prisoners and others in those settings also would be protected.
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Proposes to end federal low-income housing program for 2 million families
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The Bush administration proposed legislation April 29 to end a federal, low-income housing assistance program that helps some 2 million families afford modest housing. The Section 8 housing voucher program provides low-income working families, the disabled, retirees and families on assistance with vouchers. Those vouchers, given to private landlords, effectively limit a family’s housing cost to 30 percent of its income. The Bush administration proposal would rename the voucher program Housing Assistance for Needy Families and convert it into a block grant for states to administer with few federal guidelines and no guarantee the annual funding would cover the costs to provide needed housing. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, 53 percent of voucher holders are families with children, 40 percent are seniors or people with disabilities and only one in five receives welfare benefits.
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Proposes to eliminate civil service protections for Department of Defense workers
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The Bush administration has developed legislation that would enable the Defense Department to gut the current personnel system that governs the department workers’ pay, salary increases, hiring, firing, job classifications, performance evaluations, due process and appeal rights, reduction in force rules and many other federal workplace rules. In all, the proposal would allow the department to waive a dozen chapters of Title 5 of the U.S. Code, which covers government organization and federal employment. It would allow the department to create an entirely new personnel system that could eliminate congressional oversight of many personnel policies, strip workers and their unions of current workplace rights and place much more personnel decision making power in the unchecked hands of supervisors.
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Proposes new rules to deny Earned Income Tax Credit to working poor
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The Bush administration wants to require working poor families to submit extensive new documentation to prove their eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). Supported by President Reagan, the EITC provides a crucial safety net for low-income working families. To be eligible for EITC, a family cannot have an income above $34,692 and the actual amount of the credit varies depending on family size and income. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) claims the new rules are designed to prevent between $6.5 billion and $10 billion in improper EITC payments, but tax experts say that the documentation requirements are likely to discourage many eligible families from applying for EITC. In addition, studies show improper payments to non-EITC individual filers amount to $132 billion plus another $70 billion to offshore corporate accounts and $46 billion for corporations. But while Bush requested some $100 million and 650 new IRS employees to track EITC filers, other tax investigations have fallen by 37 percent and prosecutions by 50 percent.
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Proposes rule to end overtime pay for millions of workers
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The Bush administration proposed new rules March 27 that would deny overtime pay protections for millions of workers. The changes in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) regulations would affect a wide range of the more than 80 million workers protected by the FLSA. The proposed rules would enable employers to reclassify many workers currently eligible for overtime as managers, administrative or professional employees who are exempt from time-and-a-half overtime. They eliminate overtime protection for large numbers of aerospace, health care, defense, high tech and other workers and also for workers above a certain income level. While the rules raise the income ceiling for some low-income workers to automatically qualify for overtime, many low-income workers would remain uncovered by that automatic protection, and the new rules propose confusing standards on whether low-income supervisors qualify for overtime protection.
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Backs bankruptcy bill that will hurt working families
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The Bush administration backs an anti-family bankruptcy proposal that the U.S. House of Representatives passed 315–113 March 19. The measure includes a loophole that allows wealthy debtors in five states to shelter income in luxury homes and strips working families of the few financial protections they currently have under bankruptcy law and makes it harder for them to make a financial fresh start. It also forces those owed child support from someone who has declared bankruptcy to compete with other creditors for whatever money is available. Ninety percent of individuals who resort to bankruptcy have come to the financial crisis because of job loss, medical emergency, divorce or other catastrophic event, according to the nonpartisan American Bankruptcy Institute.
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Denies airline workers due process in security assessments
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The Bush administration issued new rules Jan. 24 that allow the Transportation Security Administration and Federal Aviation Administration to revoke an aviation worker’s certification without basic due process protections. The new rule was issued and took effect without any public comment period. It allows the government to revoke or deny needed federal certification for pilots, mechanics, flight instructors and other aviation workers if the government—under secretive and arbitrary procedures—concludes a worker is a “security threat.” The rule denies an employee the right to an impartial review of the facts and does not require workers be shown the evidence or be told the specific reasons behind a security-risk finding.
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Delays new and stronger aircraft maintenance and repair rules
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The Bush administration delayed new rules governing repair and maintenance work performed on U.S. airlines’ aircraft at overseas repair stations certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The March 14 action, just days before the start of a war with Iraq and amid growing concern about terrorism and security, came at the request of the airline industry and is opposed by aviation unions and aviation safety groups. In 1988, many U.S. airlines began contracting out their routine maintenance and repair work on aircraft that fly domestic and international routes when the Reagan administration watered down repair station safety regulations. Previously, most work was performed by U.S. mechanics at U.S. repair stations. The new rules, which were to be implemented April 6, would have strengthened the repair and maintenance regulations and requirements for overseas repairs stations to receive and maintain their FAA certification.
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Seeking legislation to thwart Medicare appeals when benefits are denied
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Bush administration officials are drafting legislation to make it harder for Medicare recipients to appeal the denial of benefits such as home health care and nursing home care. Under current law, beneficiaries who say they were unfairly denied coverage for theses services can take their cases to administrative law judges. In the past five years, about 53 percent of those appealing won their cases, according to The New York Times. But Bush administration officials at the Department of Health and Human Services want other means to resolve the appeals—avenues that may unfairly tilt the scales against the people with disabilities and the elderly who qualify for Medicare. “The president’s proposals would compromise the independence of administrative law judges, who have protected beneficiaries in case after case, year after year,” Judith Stein, director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy, told The New York Times March 16.
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Negotiated ‘Fast Track’ trade agreements weaker than existing treaties on workers' rights
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Armed with Fast Track trade promotion authority, the Bush administration is moving rapidly to rack up as many so-called free trade agreements as possible. The administration negotiated the first two agreements under Fast Track—deals with Chile and Singapore—in secret and said in February it is not releasing the details to the public until later this year. The deals will go to Congress later this year, and under Fast Track the lawmakers cannot amend the deals and can only approve or reject them as a whole.
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Proposed school vouchers
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In his fiscal year 2004 budget request, President Bush is asking for $75 million for school voucher programs in several cities, including the District of Columbia. District Mayor Anthony Williams met in early February with top Bush administration education officials to express his opposition to vouchers, which siphon public funds away from public schools and toward private schools that are not accountable to parents, students or taxpayers. The proposed vouchers program would further drain funding from public education at the same time that Bush wants to virtually freeze federal funding to school programs suffering because of state and local governments’ budget crises. Bush’s proposed education “funding levels are unacceptably low,” says the Committee for Education Funding (CEF), a coalition of groups supporting public schools.
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Proposed cutting school funds for military
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At the same time he is relying on American troops to fight a war in Iraq, President Bush is proposing to cut education funding for children in military families, according to news reports in late February. In his fiscal year 2004 budget request, Bush cuts federal impact aid funding—a federal program established in 1950 to compensate school districts for the property tax income they lose when tax-exempt property (such as military bases) are within their boundaries. Ending the $125 million program would affect 900,000 children, and officials of several school districts have said they would have to cut staff and defer needed building repairs. “I just can’t understand how, at a time when our military men and women are being deployed for a possible war with Iraq, this administration can turn its back on the children of our military personnel,” said John Forkenbrock, executive director of the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools.
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Proposed rules that would cut children's access to school lunches
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The Bush administration began considering changes to the federal school lunch program in January that likely would result in fewer children having access to the meals. Officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture say there are children getting free or reduced-price meals whose families don’t really qualify for the program because they make too much money. But advocates for low-income families say the Bush administration is inflating the figures in order to justify cutting the number of children who can get the meals. The Bush administration is considering ways to verify some families’ income levels before allowing them to participate in the program—a tactic that likely would scare parents away from applying and lead to bureaucratic snafus, says the nonpartisan advocacy group Food Research and Action Center (FRAC).
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Proposed new accounts that may weaken 401(k) plans
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President Bush, on Jan. 31, proposed three new types of “savings” and “retirement” accounts that would benefit high-income families but could lead employers to eliminate workers’ current 401(k) plans. The new individual Lifetime Savings Accounts (LSAs) would allow families to set up accounts for each family member and contribute $7,500 a year per person. The contributions would not be tax deductible but funds could be withdrawn tax-free any time. Bush’s new Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) would allow contributions of $15,000 a year, plus an additional $15,000 for a spouse. A family of four taking advantage of both the new accounts would be able to shelter $60,000 a year and never pay taxes on earnings or withdrawals. The third new account, Employer Retirement Savings Accounts (ERSAs), are designed to look like current 401(k)s but reduce the “anti-discrimination” rules on retirement accounts, which are meant to prevent owners or higher-paid employees from taking full advantage of company retirement plans unless lower-paid workers participate in sufficient numbers. Employers and their highly paid colleagues could use Bush’s new accounts to shelter their resources and remove incentives to offer and participate in current 401(k) plans that must be available to all employees.
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Proposed ‘privatized’ prescription drug plan for seniors
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President Bush proposed a prescription drug plan March 4 that requires seniors to leave the doctors they know and trust and join private HMOs to get the full drug benefit. The Bush plan offers more generous drug benefits to people in private plans, giving much less assistance to those who decide to stay in the traditional Medicare program—only a drug discount card and undefined protection against “high out-of-pocket prescription drug expenses”—according to Bush’s speech announcing the plan. But after public outcry and heavy criticism, Bush backed away from mandatory enrollment in HMOs. The current proposal’s limited benefits for those who stay in Medicare was designed, critics say, to give the impression that seniors would have a “choice” to stay in Medicare if they wanted prescription drug coverage. The president’s proposed tax cuts for the wealthy also use up funds needed for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. Republican members of the House Budget Committee considered a budget resolution on March 12 that leaves only $28 billion for such a benefit over 10 years or requires deep cuts in Medicare and other health care programs—while setting aside $726 billion for tax cuts for the wealthy.
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Seeks to cut funding for poverty programs
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President Bush’s fiscal year 2004 budget released Feb. 3 cuts funding for some poverty programs, relaxes federal rules that states must abide by for some and restricts eligibility for others. The Washington Post reported that some of the affected programs include housing subsidies, unemployment benefits, health insurance, Head Start and the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). For example, the Bush budget proposes forcing parents receiving Temporary Assistance to Needy Families to work more hours (40) than already required (30), yet reduces or freezes funding for programs that would help them successfully join the workforce, including child care, transportation assistance and job training. In February, the U.S. House of Representatives passed its welfare reform bill; like Bush’s plan, it did not include enough child care funding for families entering the workforce. While proposing to eliminate taxes on corporate dividends, the Bush budget seeks to make it harder for families to qualify for the EITC, which provides a tax credit to working poor families, and to make it harder for children of low-income families to qualify for reduced-price or free school meals. It also would relax federal rules on Medicaid and allow states to drop many persons now covered or reduce the amount of aid provided and increase patients’ costs.
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Subm itted a budget that's big on tax breaks for the wealthy, short on relief for working families
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Presiden t Bush proposed a fiscal year 2004 budget Feb. 3 loaded with tax breaks for the wealthy, but lacking real relief for working families, the unemployed and states, which are facing their worst economic crisis in a half century. Bush’s budget cuts spending on workplace safety, low-income housing and aid to rural schools. It does nothing to create new jobs, rebuild and modernize schools, improve the nation’s transportation and transit infrastructure, build and refurbish the nation’s drinking and wastewater systems or patch the holes in the nation’s homeland security framework. Bush’s budget offers no meaningful solutions to the nation’s health care crisis, nor does it provide any real help for seniors struggling to pay the soaring cost of prescription drugs. It does, however, create record deficits and provide huge tax cuts for the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers, especially through its elimination of taxes on corporate dividends and proposed creation of several tax-free savings accounts that will shelter income for the wealthy.
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Terminated collective bargaining rights for 1,300 federal workers
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On Jan. 30, a Bush administration official terminated the collective bargaining rights of more than 1,300 workers at the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA). Following the lead of other Bush administration officials, James Clapper Jr., the agency’s director, invoked the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as the reason for curtailing workers’ rights. However, union leaders said the move comes just as NIMA workers—members of AFGE Local 1827 in St. Louis and Local 3407 in Bethesda, Md.—were pursuing concerns about safety, promotions and gender and racial bias in the agency. AFGE President Bobby Harnage Sr. said Clapper’s decision “falls in line with President Bush’s anti-union policy.” Harnage noted that Bush stripped workers in the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Attorney’s offices nationwide of their collective bargaining rights, as well as the union rights of newly federalized airport screeners. “The fight against terrorism, in which federal employees have always been on the frontlines of the homeland, is about preserving our freedoms—including our right to organize—not destroying them,” said Harnage.
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Offers plan to allow states to restrict Medicaid
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President Bush proposed a plan Jan. 31 that would drastically overhaul the nation’s Medicaid program serving some 44 million poor families, children, persons with disabilities and elderly patients in nursing homes. The changes would give states the right to increase payments from patients, restrict certain medical services and benefits—such as visits to emergency rooms and hospitals—and move more people to managed care. States that choose to participate in the program would be given more federal funds, with few restrictions on how to use the money, than states that choose to operate a traditional Medicaid program. Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), ranking member of the health subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which handles Medicaid, said, “Instead of investing sufficiently to protect current Medicaid beneficiaries, [Bush] is ‘permitting’ states to kick some people off the rolls so others can come on. If that's not shortsighted, then shortsighted has no meaning.”
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Backs suit to end affirmative action
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The Bush administration filed a brief Jan. 17 with the U.S. Supreme Court siding with a suit that challenges affirmative action policies of the University of Michigan that are designed to help shape a diverse student body. Along with grades and test scores, many universities consider an applicant’s race, national origin or gender among many factors in the admissions process, including geography, athletic ability, special talents and whether an applicant is a child of an alumnus. For example, Bush, an admitted “C” student, won admission to Yale University, where both his father and grandfather were graduates.
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Proposes to eliminate overtime pay for millions
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The Bush administration’s Department of Labor is expected to issue new rules in March that could eliminate overtime pay for many of the 80 million workers currently covered under the overtime pay rule of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which says workers are entitled to time-and-one-half pay for every hour worked above 40 hours in a week. According to news reports, the Bush administration is considering changes to several exemptions to the current rules, which may allow employers to exclude more workers from overtime. Currently, workers who are legitimately classified as executive, professional or administrative employees are exempt.
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Offered prescription drug plan that forces Medicare seniors into HMOs
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President Bush, in his State of the Union address Jan. 28, called for a plan to help seniors pay for costly prescription drugs. He offered no details. But that plan, according to a general outline released by the White House Jan. 24, would force Medicare beneficiaries into private health plans such as HMOs if they want to receive help paying for their prescription drugs. Currently, about 5 million of the 40 million Medicare beneficiaries take part in a private insurance experiment pilot called Medicare+Choice. But that program has dropped more than 2.4 million seniors from coverage since 1999 and many of those plans “don't serve rural communities or anywhere else if the profit margin is not high enough. Private plans have not been a good deal for the Medicare program,” said Ron Pollock, executive director for the health advocacy group Families USA.
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Orde red end of Medicare advice and information outreach
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In a Dec. 24 memo, the Bush administration's Department of Health and Human Services ordered Medicare contractors to halt outreach and information activities that educate Medicare patients about their rights under the program. The contractors review and pay Medicare claims for the government and have operated beneficiary education and information programs through newsletters and visits to senior housing sites and centers, health fairs, hospitals and other venues. The outreach efforts included information on new Medicare benefits and how to appeal denied claims, obtain prescription drug discounts, select a nursing home, report Medicare fraud and fight hospital overcharges.
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Considers limiting scholarships for female athletes
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A federal commission is considering letting colleges and universities limit the number of scholarships they award to female athletes. The Secretary’s Commission on Opportunity in Athletics, part of the Bush administration’s federal Education Department, is reviewing Title IX, the 30-year-old law that bans sex discrimination in college-level sports. The law is credited widely with increasing young women’s participation in sports. According to an investigation by The Washington Post, the proposal would allow schools to devote as little as 43 percent of their athletic scholarships to women—even though women make up 55 percent of students enrolled at four-year colleges. Currently, schools comply with Title IX if they ensure that the percentage of male and female athletes is about equal to the ratio of genders enrolled.
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Attempts to appoint anti-gay extremist to AIDS advisory panel
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Officials in the Bush administration appointed an anti-gay extremist to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS. According to news reports, Jerry Thacker described AIDS as the “gay plague” and referred to “the sin of homosexuality” as a “deathstyle.” On Jan. 23, just a few days before he was to be sworn in, Thacker withdrew from the council amid objections from members of Congress and civil rights advocates. Spurning the notion that the buck stops at the Oval Office desk, Bush aides pointed the finger at Tommy Thompson, Department of Health and Human Services secretary, for approving Thacker’s appointment. “Thacker was right to step aside and we hope that future administration appointments will reflect a commitment to epidemiology, not fringe ideology,” said Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign.
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Renominates previously rejected candidates to federal bench
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President Bush Jan. 7 nominated Mississippi federal Judge Charles Pickering and Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen as candidates for federal appeals court seats. Last year both were rejected by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee because of their troubling records on Americans’ rights. Along with Pickering and Owen, Bush nominated to various federal benches another 29 judges with extreme, ultraconservative records hostile to workers, civil rights and environmental and consumer protections.
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Attempts to restrict emergency room visits for the poor
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In December, the Bush administration put in place an arguably illegal policy that would allow states to limit emergency care for Medicaid patients. The effect would have been to restrict medical treatment for the poor. After a storm of criticism—including threats from U.S. senators of both parties to block the policy—the administration reversed course Jan. 23 and decided not to go through with the change. Thomas Scully, administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, had said the limits were necessary to help states save money during their unprecedented fiscal crises. But instead of funneling more funds to states for Medicaid and other human needs, the Bush administration is advocating big tax breaks for the wealthy.
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Denies airport screeners freedom to choose a union
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The Bush administration denied collective bargaining rights to newly federalized airport security screeners. Adm. James Loy, undersecretary of transportation for security, on Jan. 9 signed an order precluding workers' rights to bargain, saying that such rights were not compatible with the nation's war against terrorism and “collective bargaining conflicts with national security needs.” AFGE activists had been helping screeners at LaGuardia Airport in New York City and at Baltimore/Washington Airport form a union. “The statement by Admiral Loy is akin to saying that being a union member gives aid and comfort to the enemy,” said Sonny Hall, president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department. “It is time for this administration to stop hiding behind the war on terrorism to mask a brazen assault on the basic rights of working men and women in this country,” said Hall, who is also president of the Transport Workers. Arguing that Loy does not have the authority under the Aviation and Transportation Security Act to prohibit screeners from organizing, AFGE filed a lawsuit Jan. 10 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to challenge the decision.
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Held no public nomination process for important safety group
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The Bush administration’s Department of Labor reversed more than 30 years of practice and closed the nomination process for the National Advisory Committee on Occupational Safety and Health (NACOSH) and on Dec. 31, 2002, announced the appointment of three new members. Since the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 established the committee, nominations have been open to the public to ensure a wide range of groups is represented on NACOSH. Five sitting committee members, including representatives from the AFL-CIO and the Steelworkers, were dropped from NACOSH.
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Chooses wealthy over working families in economic stimulus package
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As the centerpiece of his economic stimulus plan, Bush proposed the complete elimination of taxes on stock dividends. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, nearly two-thirds of the benefits of exempting corporate dividends from the individual income tax would flow to the wealthiest 5 percent of tax filers because they own the lion's share of stocks. The center also noted that the group with annual incomes of more than $1 million—about 226,000 tax filers in 2003—would receive roughly as much in benefits as the 120 million tax filers with incomes less than $100,000. Most economists agree that ending the tax on stock dividends would do little to stimulate the economy, provide little help for working families and drive up the federal deficit.
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Proposes smallpox vaccination plan that puts workers and patients at risk
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Bush announced a plan in December to vaccinate health care workers and other first responders, such as firefighters and police officers, against smallpox. But while the plan protects drug companies that produce the vaccine from liability, it fails to protect workers from risks associated with the vaccine. The vaccine is risky for one in six Americans who are pregnant, suffer from eczema or other skin disorders or whose immune systems are suppressed because of such conditions as HIV, cancer or transplant treatments, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Other recent studies show that one in three workers who get the vaccine will suffer side effects that will make them too sick to work for several days. The president's plan provides inadequate screening to determine who may be at risk and fails to protect against loss of income for those who become too ill to work or provide workers' compensation for those who become disabled from the vaccine.
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Proposes $1 billion reporting burden on unions
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On Dec. 23, the Bush administration proposed new financial reporting and disclosure requirements for national and local unions that create a huge tangle of red tape and estimated compliance costs of as much as $1 billion year. These regulations apply to small unions that often rely on part-time and voluntary staffing, as well as large unions. The requirements are far more stringent and sweeping than those on corporations. They are so burdensome “they will weaken unions as a force for workers' rights and economic fairness,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
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Keeps labor, environmental and consumer representatives off trade board
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The Bush administration nominated 32 persons to serve on the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN) in December. But contrary to the law that created the committee in 1974, Bush did not include a single representative from labor, environmental or consumer groups among the nominees for the trade panel announced in December. ACTPN is the primary advisory committee on trade policy to the president. In the past, Republican and Democratic administrations have adhered to the law's requirement concerning appointees. The law explicitly states the membership of the committee shall include representatives of labor, environmental and consumer interests and that the committee membership shall be “broadly representative of the key sectors and groups of the economy, particularly with respect to those sectors and groups which are affected by trade.” The Dec. 13 issue of Inside U.S. Trade (a weekly trade newsletter published by Inside Washington Publishers) reports that the nominees include "major Republican campaign donors, free trade theologians and a few people with close ties to [U.S. Trade Representative] Robert Zoellick." The AFL-CIO filed a lawsuit Dec. 20 demanding the Bush administration comply with legal requirements to include a broad group of advisors on the panel. Only thereafter did the administration move to appoint representatives of the labor movement to ACTPN.
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Eliminates report on mass layoffs and plant closings
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The Bush administration announced Dec. 24 it no long would issue public reports on mass layoffs and plant closings. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' monthly analysis details every layoff of more than 50 workers and the type of industry. The last report to be issued was for November 2002, and it reported 2,150 mass layoffs and about 240,000 workers who lost their jobs, mostly in the manufacturing industries. State officials said the monthly reports were vital in helping them plan and fund their dislocated worker programs and services.
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Appoints Postal Service Privatization Commission
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President Bush appointed a nine-member commission, with no representative from any postal union, to study the United States Postal Service as part of his plan, according to The Washington Post, “to allow private contractors to compete for nearly half of the government’s civilian jobs.” The Postal Service employs about 750,000 workers at 38,000 facilities. The commission is “a thinly veiled attempt to dismantle the Postal Service as we know it. The president’s action puts into motion the most serious threat in 200 years to modify the underpinnings of the U.S. Postal Service, including universal service, uniform rates and six-day-a-week delivery,” said Postal Workers President William Burrus. The lack of a postal union representative on the commission continues a Bush administration pattern of excluding workers’ representatives on government panels studying workplace issues.
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Proposes repeal of family-friendly unemployment benefits rule
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The Bush administration announced in December its intention to repeal a rule that allows states to use unemployment compensation funds to provide benefits to workers who must leave their jobs temporarily to care for newborn or newly adopted children. The Birth and Adoption Unemployment Compensation rule—also known as the “Baby UI” rule—that took in effect in 2000 is completely voluntary for states that are exploring new ways to help working families balance work and family requirements. No state has implemented such a program, but in 2001, bills were introduced in 20 state legislatures to establish birth and adoption unemployment benefit programs. A number of states are considering options for providing paid leave to workers, and California adopted the nation’s first such program earlier this year. The Bush action follows the failure of administration and Republican congressional leaders to extend unemployment benefits to close to 800,000 workers who will exhaust their UI benefits three days after Christmas.
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Revives cash bonuses for political appointees
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In March, the Bush administration overturned a ban on cash bonus awards to political appointees in federal government patronage jobs but did not publicly announce the change. News reports brought the action to light in December. Such awards were banned under White House policy in 1994 because of past abuse and favoritism including, according to The Washington Post, “questionable payments to some outgoing aides in the final days of the administration of President George H.W. Bush, the president’s father.” About, 2,100 political appointees are eligible for awards of up to $25,000. Total awards could exceed $25 million. The action came to light just days after Bush announced he was withholding a quarter of the pay adjustment career federal employees were to receive in 2003. “Whether it's tax cuts for the rich or privatizing 850,000 jobs to boost the fortunes of contractors, this administration knows how to enrich the rich and to impoverish working families,” said AFGE President Bobby L. Harnage Sr.
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Shuts workers, unions out of most safety studies
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The Bush administration announced formation of a national advisory committee on ergonomics Dec. 4 to study causes and methods to prevent workplace ergonomic injuries that hurt some 1.8 million workers a year. But for the first time in the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s 32-year history, a workplace safety advisory committee did not contain an equal number of union and management representatives. Two union safety staff members were appointed, compared with seven management representatives. The Bush administration also has formed several “alliances” in specific industries, such as meatpacking, airlines, printing and others, to study workplace safety, but none of those alliances include union or worker representatives. In fact, many of the corporations tapped to serve on the ergonomics advisory board and the alliances opposed creation of a federal ergonomics standard to prevent workplace repetitive motion injuries and were instrumental in the law’s repeal when Bush took control of the government.
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Allowed jobless workers to lose unemployment benefits
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Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives, with backing from the Bush administration, in a straight party-line vote rejected a Democratic economic stimulus proposal that would have extended the emergency federal unemployment benefits program for long-term laid-off workers for another six months and added 13 weeks of regular benefits for jobless workers in all states. The Republican plan, backed by the Bush administration, would help the jobless in only three states, would do nothing to help the long-term unemployed workers who already have exhausted their benefits and would deny any benefits to 2.9 million laid-off workers who are expected to run out of emergency and regular benefits in the next six months.
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Announced plans to privatize federal workforce
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The Bush administration announced plans Nov. 14 to make it easier to eliminate federal jobs and contract the work out to private companies. Proposed changes to the rules that govern contracting out—OMB Circular A-76—will give private companies the advantage over federal workers in the private-public competition process. Of the 850,000 jobs the Bush administration hopes to put up for bid eventually, the White House has set a goal to bid out at least 15 percent, or 127,500, by October 2003, according to news reports. Leaders of the largest federal workers union, AFGE, said they would reserve final judgment on the proposal until they have a chance to examine its detail, but said they view it with skepticism because “Bush administration officials are at war with reliable and experienced rank-and-file federal employees. They are systematically conspiring to bust their unions, gut their civil service protections and hand over their jobs to politically well-connected contractors.”
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Asked Fire Fighters member to resign from valor commission because of union affiliation
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When the Bush White House asked Prince Georges County, Md., Fire Fighters Local 1619 President Thomas McEachin to resign his appointment to its Medal of Valor Commission—a group that recognizes firefighters and other public safety officers for service above and beyond the call of duty—because of his IAFF affiliation, he refused. So this October the administration simply removed him. The White House asked McEachin to resign because IAFF leaders criticized the Bush administration’s opposition to the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) Firefighters Act—which will provide money for 75,000 additional firefighters nationwide—as well as additional funding for the Firefighter Investment and Response Enhancement (FIRE) Act and money to monitor the health of firefighters who responded to the World Trade Center. “This was a real eye-opener for me,” said McEachin. “My removal smacks of retribution and pettiness on the part of the administration.”
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Uses Taft-Hartley to intervene in West Coast dock lockout
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In an unprecedented move, the Bush administration invoked the Taft-Hartley Act to intervene in a lockout at the nation’s West Coast ports. President George W. Bush secured a court order Oct. 8 ordering the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) to temporarily end its lockout of 10,500 dockworkers at 29 West Coast ports and ordering work to resume without a contract. The court later continued the injunction as an 80-day cooling off period during which work is to continue. From the beginning of the contract negotiations between the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the PMA, Bush has threatened to use federal power to intervene in the talks. Bush’s threats “tainted the water of negotiations, giving employers no incentive to engage in good-faith bargaining,” AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka said. This is the first time Taft-Hartley has been used since 1978 and the first time ever in a lockout.
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Ducks hearings on Social Security privatization
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When the Senate Finance Committee held hearings Oct. 3 on three options President Bush’s Social Security privatization commission endorsed last December, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was absent, having rejected two requests to testify before the committee. Bush created the commission in 2001, handpicking proponents of diverting a portion of payroll taxes away from Social Security and into individual, private accounts. Despite the ongoing stock market collapse and corporate scandals in which workers lost their retirement security, Bush reportedly still supports privatization and hopes for action in the next year, after the elections. “Secretary O’Neill’s absence deprives the American people of the information they deserve about exactly what privatization action the president plans to pursue,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said.
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Opposes funds for firefighters
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President Bush is opposing a request by fire chiefs, unions and lawmakers to use federal money to help fire departments hire more personnel. The Fire Fighters and the International Association of Fire Chiefs are seeking a federal grant to help communities with understaffed departments hire 75,000 new firefighters over the next seven years at a cost of $7.6 billion. Bush has proposed spending $3.5 billion for police officers, firefighters and other first responders in the next fiscal year, with most of the money going for training and equipment. “All the right equipment in the world and all the training isn’t really of much value if you don’t have adequate numbers of personnel to perform their mission,” said IAFF President Harold Schaitberger.
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Sides with drug companies against seniors
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Bush appointee Solicitor General Theodore Olson filed a brief in late September with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the drug companies’ suit to outlaw Maine’s prescription drug program. The Maine Rx Program, passed in 2000, allows the state to bargain with drug companies on behalf of its senior citizens to lower their prescription drug costs through bulk purchases. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the industry’s lobbyist, filed suit to nullify the law, claiming it violated federal Medicare statutes. The Bush administration is pushing a federal prescription drug plan that would privatize prescription drug benefits and force seniors to pay all costs between $3450 and $5300 out of their own pockets. It also allows insurance companies and HMOs to decide whether to offer drug coverage in a given area, what drugs to cover, and how much beneficiaries would have to pay. Congressional Democrats and senior advocacy groups back a plan that provides prescription drug benefits under Medicare, covers the drugs seniors need and controls the costs of premiums and co-pays.
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Reneges on steel tariffs
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The Bush administration in August excluded 178 imported steel products from high tariffs imposed this year, threatening the goal of saving the nation's steel industry. Many of the exclusions are for products American steelworkers make every day. Since the steel crisis began in 1998, more than 50,000 steelworkers have lost their jobs and 35 companies have declared bankruptcy. The tariffs, adopted last March, gave a ray of hope that there might be an opportunity for the American steel industry to consolidate and assure our country will have a steel industry. “The administration cannot give with one hand, while taking it away with another. It leads to a steel trade policy of confusion that won't result in fulfilling a national security need for a healthy, globally competitive American steel industry,” said Steelworkers President Leo Gerard.
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Will block funds to monitor health of World Trade Center rescue and recovery workers and money for firefighters
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President Bush said Aug. 13 he will not release the $5.1 billion Congress approved for supplemental homeland security programs. Those funds include $90 million to monitor the health of workers who cleaned up the rubble at Ground Zero, as well as $150 million for equipment and training grants requested by some of the nation’s 18,000 fire departments and $100 million to improve the communications systems for firefighters, police officers and other emergency personnel.
Bush’s action prompted the Fire Fighters to launch a campaign to lobby Congress to include the money in the spending bills for the federal fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. IAFF President Harold Schaitberger also said he planned to write a letter of protest to Bush. Despite some reports, Schaitberger said the Fire Fighters will not boycott an Oct. 6 ceremony in Washington, D.C., where 343 firefighters who died responding to the Sept. 11 attacks will be honored along with 100 other firefighters who also died in the past year.
Included in the $5.1 billion homeland security spending measure is money to improve the communications systems of firefighters, police officers and other emergency personnel. The Sept. 11 rescue efforts were hindered by communications problems when the various agencies’ radios and other devices could not communicate with one another. Other items that Bush’s veto will kill include funds to increase and improve inspections of cargo containers at the nation’s ports, enhance the FBI’s counterterrorism technology and strengthen security around the nation’s food and water supply.
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Consider s troops to keep ports open in West Coast docks lockout or strike
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The Bush administration admitted it is considering using federal troops to help West Coast port management keep the ports open if workers are locked out of their jobs or if they strike. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents some 16,000 workers, and the Pacific Maritime Association are in contract talks. But the Bush administration has assembled a task force to explore ways for the federal government to intervene, including changing labor laws to remove the dockworkers from National Labor Relations Act jurisdiction and make them subject to the more restrictive Railway Labor Act. The Bush administration’s threatened intervention has hindered bargaining and taken away the maritime association’s incentive to negotiate, the union said. “We will never get to productive bargaining until the Bush administration gets out of business,” ILWU President James Spinosa said.
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Nominate d coporate-friendly, anti-worker Texas judge to federal bench
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President Bush nominated Priscilla Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice, to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. In seven years on the Texas court, Owen has issued a series of decisions and dissents that are hostile to the interests of working men and women, especially in workers' compensation cases and other workers' rights cases. A report by Texans for Public Justice also cites Owen's anti-consumer decisions and dissents along with her opposition to reproductive and women's rights. Many legal observers say Owen's record is outside the mainstream, even by conservative Texas Supreme Court standards, and she is considered a conservative judicial activist who frequently ignores the plain language of the law in her decisions. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will vote on her nomination this fall.
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Seeks to strip civil service and collective bargaining rights from federal workers in proposed Homeland Security Department
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President Bush’s proposal for a homeland security department would strip some 170,000 federal workers of their civil service and collective bargaining rights. The administration proposal would combine 150 existing agencies, departments and offices into one mega-department. The House approved the administration’s plan, including stripping workers of their rights, July 26. A Senate version, approved by the Governmental Affairs Committee, would maintain the workers’ rights and the Bush administration has threatened to veto that bill. Since taking office, Bush has stripped several hundred Justice Department workersof collective bargaining and threatened the rights of air traffic controllers.
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Opens the door to privatization of the nation's air traffic control system
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President Bush signed an executive order June 4 that strips the nation’s air traffic control system of its designation as an “inherently governmental” operation. In effect, that opens the
Fyrirsögnin kemur eflaust flatt upp á suma. Það hefur verið vinsælt hjá vinstri mönnum að gagnrýna nýlega kjörinn forseta Bandaríkjanna, hann George Walker Bush. En sannleikurinn er sá að Bush er á margan hátt skoðanabróðir þeirra sömu vinstri manna, og sumir hægri íhaldsmenn hafa gengið svo langt að kalla hann “frjálslyndan”. Ég vil ganga skrefinu lengra og kalla hann George það sem hann raunverulega er; argasti sósíalisti.
Hugi notar vefkökur til að bæta notendaupplifun á vefsíðunni og greina umferð um hana.
Einnig hefur Hugi uppfært persónuverndarstefnu sína.